A second bottle, smaller than the previous two, floated to the surface. He sequestered it, unscrewed the lid, and read the brief note within.
The previous communiqué is not a forgery. I am in good health and hope you are the same. G.
P.S. It will no longer be necessary for anyone to leave the planet. Notify them that I am all right, and tell them to stay in their living areas for the time being. G.
“But it’s too late,” Joe said aloud. They’re leaving right now. Glimmung, you waited too long. I am the only one left. I and the robots; in particular Willis. And we are not much. Nothing at all compared with the gigantic and varied crew which you assembled for the task of raising Heldscalla. Your Project has come to an end.
And what was more this note could be a forgery, too. An attempt by the cathedral to hold onto everyone, to keep them from leaving the planet as Miss Reiss had ordered. However, the note had the authentic ring of Glimmung’s style. If the notes were forgeries, they were good ones.
Taking the last sheet of paper, Joe wrote an answer on the back of it in block letters.
If you are in good health why are you staying down below?
Signed Worried Employee.
He stuffed the note in one of the bottles, put in a weight from his belt, screwed tight the lid, and dropped the bottle over the side of the boat. It sank immediately. And, almost immediately, came bobbing back up. He fished it in and opened it.
I am currently dispatching the Black Cathedral. Will return to the dry land when that has been done. Signed Confident Employer.
P.S. Get the others. They will be needed. G.
Obediently, but without conviction, Joe put-putted back to the lit-up staging area. He located a vidphone—there were several—and when connected asked the autonomic phone system to connect him with the tower at the planet’s sole spaceport.
“When did the last major ship take off?” he asked the tower.
“Yesterday.”
“Then you have an intersystem ship on your pad right now?”
“Yes, we do.”
Good news, and yet, in a sense, ominous news, too. Joe said, “Glimmung wants it halted and the passengers dispersed so that they can come here.”
“You have authority to speak for Mr. Glimmung?”
“Yes,” Joe said.
“Prove it.”
“He told me orally.”
“Prove it.”
“If you let the ship go,” Joe said, “then Heldscalla will never be raised. And Glimmung will destroy you.”
“Let’s see you verify that.”
“Let me talk to Miss Reiss,” Joe said.
“Who is Miss Reiss?”
“Aboard the ship. Glimmung’s private secretary.”
“I can’t take orders from her either. I’m autonomic.”
“Did a huge flapping thing, completely black, come your way?”
“No.”
“Well,” Joe said, “it’s heading there. It should show up any time. Everyone on board the ship will die because you won’t tell them to disperse.”
“Neurotic panic alarms cannot dissuade me,” the tower said, but it sounded uneasy, now. There was a pause; Joe sensed it straining to see and hear at the farthest reach of its sensory apparatus. “I—“ the tower said haltingly. “I think I see it.”
“Disperse the ship’s passengers,” Joe said. “Before it’s too late.”
“But they’ll be sitting hens,” the tower said.
“Ducks,” Joe corrected.
“My point is clear though the metaphor be wrong,” the tower said. But now it sounded uncertain of itself. “Perhaps I could put you through to someone aboard the ship.”
“Hurry,” Joe said.
The phone’s screen showed a variety of unnatural colors, and then upon it there appeared the rugged, gray, massive head of Harper Baldwin. “Yes, Mr. Fernwright?” He, like the tower, showed acute nervousness. “We’re just leaving. I understand a false Glimmung is headed this way. Unless we take off immediately—“
“The orders are changed,” Joe said. “Glimmung is alive and well and wants you all here at the aquatic staging center. As soon as possible.”
A cool, practical, competent face appeared on the vidscreen. A near-female face. “This is Hilda Reiss. In a situation like this our only viable alternative is to evacuate Plowman’s Planet; I thought you understood that. I told Miss Yojez—“
“But Glimmung wants you here,” Joe said. The red tape; the damn red tape. He held the note from Glimmung before the vidscreen. “You recognize his writing? As his personal, private secretary you should.”
She peered, forehead wrinkled. “ ‘It will no longer be necessary for anyone to leave the planet,’ “she read aloud.
“’Notify them that I am all right. And tell them—‘”
Joe held the next note before the screen.
“’Get the others,’ “ Miss Reiss read. “I see. Well, that is certainly quite distinct.” She eyed Joe. “All right, Mr. Fernwright. We will hire werj drivers and vehicles and come to the staging center posthaste. You can expect us in ten or fifteen minutes. For a number of reasons I hope that the false Glimmung let loose will not destroy us on the way. Bye.” She rang off, then. The screen became dark, the receiver silent.
Ten minutes, Joe thought. And with the Black Glimmung over their heads. They’ll be lucky if they can get any werjes to drive them. Even the autonomic tower, a synthetic construct, had been worried.
The hope of their arriving at the aquatic staging center seemed dim.
Half an hour passed. There was no sign of a hovercraft, no manifestation of the group. It got them, Joe Fernwright said to himself. They are finished. And, meanwhile, Glimmung battles the Black Cathedral at the bottom of Mare Nostrum. Everything is being decided right now.
Why don’t they come? he asked himself violently. Did it get them? Are they corpses floating in the water or drying to bleached teeth and bones on the land? And Glimmung. What about him? Even if they get here, everything still depends on Glimmung’s victory over the Black Cathedral. If he dies then they have come here for nothing; we will all leave, leave here, leave the planet. Back to overcrowded Earth for me, with phony money, the vets’ dole, the empty cubicle where nothing happens. And The Game, the goddam Game. For the remainder of my life.
I’m not going to leave here, he said to himself. Even if Glimmung dies. But—what would this world be like without Glimmung? Ruled by the Book of the Kalends . . . a mechanistic world, each day cranked out by The Book; a world without freedom. The Book will tell us each day what we are going to do, and we will do it. And, eventually, The Book will tell us we are going to die, and we will–.
Die. He thought, The Book was wrong; it said what I found down below the surface of the ocean would cause me to kill Glimmung. And it didn’t.
But Glimmung could still die; the prophecy could still come true. Two battles remain: the battle to destroy the Black Cathedral, and the battle, the terrible task, of lifting Heldscalla to the surface. Glimmung could die during either; he could be dying right now. And all our hopes with him.
He turned on the radio to see if there was any news.
“Impotent?” the radio said. “Unable to achieve an orgasm? Hardovax will turn disappointment into joy.” Another voice, then, that of a miserable male. “Gosh, Sally, I don’t know what’s been the matter with me. I know you’ve noticed that I’m completely flaccid of late. Gosh, everyone’s noticed.” A female voice, then. “Henry, what you need is a simple pill called Hardovax. And in days you’ll be a real man.” “ ‘Hardovax’?” Henry echoed. “Gosh, maybe I should try it.” Then the announcer’s voice again. “At your nearby drugstore or write direct to—“ Joe shut it off, at that point. Now I know what Willis meant, he said to himself.
A large hovercar landed at the miniature field of the staging center. He heard it arrive; he felt the building quiver and vibrate. So they made it, he said to himself, and hurried toward the field to meet them. His legs felt like heated thermoplastic; he could barely support himself.
Harper Baldwin, tall and stern, emerged first. “There you are, Fernwright.” Harper Baldwin shook hands cordially with Joe; he seemed relaxed, now. “It was quite a battle.”
“What happened?” Joe said, as the sharp-faced middleaged woman stepped out. Chrissakes, he thought. Don’t just stand there; tell me. “How did you get away from it?” he asked as the reddish, heavyset man emerged, then the matronly woman, and, after her, the timid little fellow.
Mali Yojez, appearing, said, “Calm down, Joe. You get so agitated.”
Now the nonhumanoid life-forms made their way from the hovercraft onto the small field. The multilegged gastropod, the immense dragonfly, the furry ice cube, the red jelly supported by its metal frame, the univalvular cephalopod, the kindly looking bivalve Nurb K’ohl Daq, the quasiarachnid, its chitinous shell gleaming, its many legs drumming . . . and then the portly, rope-tailed werj driver himself. The various forms scuttled, wiggled, walked, and haltingly slithered under the protection of the three hermetically sealed domes of the staging center, getting themselves out of the nocturnal cold. Mali, alone, remained with Joe—except for the werj driver, who loitered nearby, smoking some peculiar form of native grass. It looked pleased with itself.